If you checked out my Realistic Forest EcoSystem tutorial, you will know one area of my focus is realism and film work. I also, however, do a lot of work in cartoon and anime style using both Vue and Poser. I am preparing my next round of tutorials, and I thought I would ask here, before I get too deep into it, to see what everyone is really looking for? What do you want to learn most? 

How many here focus on animation, matte painting (creating epic establishing shots), interiors? How many make great use of available content here and on sites like Daz. ( i had an idea for a video on "kit bashing" where existing content is broken apart, recombined and changed into something new)? 

What about cinematic lighting? (especially for using Poser characters in Vue scenes) 

As an artist with a film and animation background, my tutorials will likely offer a different perspective on things. I would love to hear any ideas and suggestions. 

Thanks,

For me, any good tutorials on matte painting would be just poifect

Tutorials on the finer points (=advanced) of environment, Illumination and reflection maps with HDRI would be great!

I'd like to see an in-depth, step-by-step tutorial on matte painting as well :) I've come across quite a few but they have the habit of somehow leaving important information out or just covering a step with a sweeping statement which doesn't tell you how to do it at all IYSWIM? (Colour matching different photos for instance)

BTW, can the forest tutorial be done with Vue 7 Complete?

Cheers,
Pajama.

matte painting? Interesting. What is that?
Is it allowed to have persons in matte paintings?

For a start, it would be excellent and superfino if somebody could define "what is matte painting".

(Or at least if we at Renderosity could reach a consensus over "matte painting".

• agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group)

Try Here

FrankT,

I appreciate your eloquent and profound wisdom but reading between the lines I take it your stance is that "only the people who works producing matte in film and animation are matte painters"?

You are of course aware of that this is a subject very controversial discussed at length at CGSociety and many other forums?

Attached Link: PHOTOSHOP Matte Painting

Read the reactions from people, quite fun..

"A painting is a painting. A digitally manipulated photograph is a digitally manipulated photograph."
"I found it quite awesome"
"not an ordinary digital photo not even photoshopped - looks to be a rendered 3D model.."
"I think the author did a great job exemplifying this technique.."

and so on and so on..
http://digg.com/design/Awesome_Photoshop_Painting_Skills

uhh no, I don't really have a stance on matte painting (and there's no point in reading between the lines - there's just whitespace there :biggrin: )

That probably is a matte painting.  There's lots of controversy at CGSociety about many things :)  I have no great experience with Matte painting but it's quite common in films (or so I'm lead to believe) and can contain elements of 3D renders and photographs.  Provided it suits the directors purpose, who cares how it's made ? (apart from peeps who don't do it for a living but nonetheless have strong opinions on it - that's a dig at CGSociety, not you btw)

"and there's no point in reading between the lines - there's just whitespace there"

Reading between the lines again..:) I understand that you think it it all mote, uninteresting..

But I find differences of opinion stimulating and fun. For instance I have been told that before my time, there was a great debacle between the VUE purists and VUE postwork people. That would have been fun to watch. If someone know where are the old links please direct me! :)

So, I wish everyone a nice weekend!

No, when I say don't bother to read between the lines, I mean just that.  If I'm going to say something then I'll say it.  I'm all for debate but as I know very little about matte painting, I can't really make much of a comment. 

There's always "discussion" between those who think postwork is somehow cheating and those who don't.  My view is use whatever makes the client happy and gets the job done quickly.  I'd point you to the threads in question but my search fu appears to be broken at the moment (probably down to suffering from the flu) so I can't find it.

And a happy weekend to you too :)

If you could do one on camera motion tracking and shadow catching, that would be great.

Quote - I'd like to see an in-depth, step-by-step tutorial on matte painting as well :) I've come across quite a few but they have the habit of somehow leaving important information out or just covering a step with a sweeping statement which doesn't tell you how to do it at all IYSWIM? (Colour matching different photos for instance)

BTW, can the forest tutorial be done with Vue 7 Complete?

Cheers,
Pajama.

Yes. Since all that is required is the ability to do EcoSystems, that tutorial can be done in Vue 7 Complete.

Thanks for the information.

Terrence, what about

Hypertexture, making ruins, landscapes
In depth gridmodelling (a la Chipwalters)
Baking, both polygon and Illumination baking
Vue & zBrush
Vue for architects
Vue, Sketchup and 3D warehouse
Vue and GeoControl2
Export/Import with UV map!

and so on, once you are thinking Vue + other app a whole new world opens.

Something about Vue and matte would be nice, and i am quite intrigued by that "cinematic lighting" , not really sure what to expect....

 There are some great ideas here. I often use Vue in combination with other tools, which you can see in my "establishing shot" tutorial, and so showing more of this could be a great set of tutorials.

Also, by "In depth gridmodelling (a la Chipwalters)" do you mean using displacements to create models from terrains? I remember a great example from the early days of Vue where someone made a totally realistic computer case using this method. This technique would go great in combination with "making ruins". I love fantasy settings and the best way to build a lot of that stuff is through displacing terrains. You can get detail that would be difficult to model traditionally and it become easy to texture as well.

Keep the ideas coming. This is a great discussion!